The Letter Sent by Elwin Leppier in A Seperate Piece

The Letter "I have escaped and need help. I am at the Christmas location. You understand. No need to risk address here. My safety depends on you coming at once. Your best friend, Elwin Leper Lepellier. The letter at the end of chapter nine presents provocative and unexpected new events in this novel. Let's first understand where Leper is coming from. He had enlisted in the Army a few months earlier and was just sent …

…is a sense of betrayal and disloyalty. If Finny could only stop being so jealous and understand that Leper is more desperate than he is this whole mess wouldn't occur over and over again. If the "separate piece" between Gene and Finny hadn't been tortured so many times it wouldn't be what it was. To me this suggests that the boys probably wanted their relationship that way because changing it would have taken little effort.